What is In Praise of Slowness about?
In Praise of Slowness (2004) is the Canadian journalist Carl Honoré's report on the slow movement: the loose, worldwide set of people and ideas pushing back against the belief that faster is always better. Starting from food, where Italy's Slow Food movement led the way, it travels through cities, work, leisure and family life. As we read it, the point is not that everything should be slow, but that each thing should go at its right speed.
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Carl Honoré is a Canadian journalist, and the book first appeared in 2004, as In Praise of Slow, with In Praise of Slowness as its American title, according to Wikipedia's page on Honoré. His own book page says it has since been published in more than 30 languages.
The bedtime story that started it
The origin story is the best advertisement the book has. A Publishers Weekly review recounts that Honoré's wake-up call came when he caught himself wanting to speed up bedtime stories for his two-year-old son, with condensed one-minute versions of fairy tales. When a father starts trying to save time on the most precious ten minutes of the day, something has gone wrong. The book is his attempt to work out what, and what people are doing about it.
Where the slow movement comes from
Food is the natural starting point, and the story starts in Italy. Slow Food was founded in 1986 by Carlo Petrini; its forerunner, Arcigola, came together to oppose a fast-food restaurant opening near the Spanish Steps in Rome. The international movement's founding manifesto was signed in Paris in 1989 by delegates from 15 countries, and the organisation is still based in Bra, in Piedmont. Its ideas, local produce, traditional recipes and meals that take their time, became the template for "slow" everything else.
Honoré uses Slow Food as a way into a much larger set of experiments. The Publishers Weekly review lists some of the ground he covers: food grown and cooked with care, towns and neighbourhoods designed around people rather than traffic, and unhurried pastimes such as knitting, painting and music. Elsewhere he looks at work and family life.
The argument, in plain words
Speed is a culture, not a law of nature. The review notes that Honoré traces our love of speed through the Industrial Revolution, the growth of cities and twentieth-century technology. Things that were made can be remade.
Slow does not mean sluggish. This is the key distinction, as we read it: the problem is not speed but speed as the default. A sprint is wonderful; a sprint through dinner, a conversation or a child's bedtime is a loss.
The right speed for each thing. The Italian idea of a tempo giusto, the right tempo, captures it well. Some things deserve brisk efficiency so that others can have time.
It is a movement, loosely speaking. There is no headquarters for slowness in general, just a lot of people in different fields reaching similar conclusions.
Does it still hold up?
The examples are of their time: the book predates smartphones in everyday use. But the core question, why do we hurry, and what does hurrying cost us, has only become sharper. Read it as a lively piece of reporting with a clear, sensible idea at its centre, not as a manual. For a more searching modern take on attention, see Jenny Odell's How to Do Nothing; for the everyday version, our page on slowing down without falling behind.
Who will enjoy it
- Anyone who suspects they are rushing through the good parts of their own life.
- People who love food, markets and long lunches and want to know where the Slow Food idea came from.
- Readers who like nonfiction told through people and places rather than studies and charts.
It suits less well if you want a step-by-step plan. It is an argument and a tour, not a programme.
FAQ
Is it a book about Italy?
Not mainly. Italy appears at the start through Slow Food, and Italian attitudes to meals and time recur, but the book roams widely.
Is it anti-technology or anti-work?
Neither, in our reading. Its target is the habit of doing everything at maximum speed, not technology or work themselves.
Has Honoré written other books?
Yes, including Under Pressure (2008), about over-scheduled childhoods, which takes the same idea into family life.
What is a simple way to try the idea?
Pick one daily thing, a meal, a walk, a conversation, and give it more time than it needs. Notice what you notice.
Sources
Written by the Zestasy editors. General information for curious adults, not medical, nutrition or training advice.